Pensioners and Ruhrpott slip off – new Germany

In 2014, 15.4 percent of the population were relatively penniless in Germany. Especially affected were the unemployed, single parents, large families and pensioners.

For decades, cities suffer in the Ruhr area as Duisburg under a structural crisis impoverishes the major parts of their population

Photo:. Getty / Ulrich Baumgarten

Around one million seniors, estimates tungsten Friedersdorff must cope with less than the benefits for the aged basic security. They shunned the way to the office, explained the President of the People’s Solidarity, because the difference between the basic security to their income is very low or indeed out of shame. “We see that more and more older At the> tablets

Because in 2014 the percentage of indigent was retirees with 15.6 percent for the first time above the overall social poverty rate, as from the published on Tuesday “poverty report 2016″ of the Joint general Association shows. “What we see today in the statistics that herald an avalanche of poverty in old age” are warned its chief executive, Ulrich Schneider. So poverty is among pensioners since 2005 ten times as strong growth as in the rest of the population because increasingly people with broken work histories come in the retirement age and the pension level was systematically reduced.

Schneider It was with his colleagues from various other organizations such as the people’s solidarity or Pro Asyl initially been real progress in 2014, the poverty rate over the previous year dropped by 0.1 percent to 15.4 percent of the population or 12.5 million people. The nationwide trend since 2006 is thus only stopped once, so Schneider. DC in 14 of the 16 states took the destitution of the population aged – with minus 2.3 or 1.4 percent particularly strong in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin. However, the poverty in the two federal states in comparison to the other provinces also relatively high

And for all clear it is noisy Schneider still too early. “I wonder if the negative trend is now completed, whether it flows into a lateral movement or whether it is even the beginning of a turnaround, the next few years “will show. Finally was harmed virtually nothing despite the good economic situation and political promise in the most vulnerable groups. Furthermore, 58 percent of all unemployed are considered poor. For single parents there are 42 in the large families 25, 33 foreigners and poorly qualified people 31 percent.

In addition, increased poverty just in the rich state Bavaria. Particularly bad but it hit North Rhine-Westphalia. There took the destitution of the population since 2006 from 13.9 to 17.5 percent last to. The reason for this is the deep structural crisis that the Ruhr area is undergoing for decades. “For the first time it has since 2014, with more than five million inhabitants, 20 per cent mark reached,” said Schneider. More than a quarter of all children living there of Hartz IV.

The one million last year, arrived here refugees have no effect on the poverty rate because they usually live in first reception or accommodation centers. In addition, they make only just over one percent of the population. “The nightmare scenario, which is precisely the refugees overburden our welfare state, has no empirical basis, but is primarily propaganda,” said Schneider. The problems on the labor and housing markets and the issue of inclusive education, of whom one stand had not come with the refugees, but are the result of years of political failures, under which would suffer now German advance and refugees.

the Joint According to the federal government for these domestic problems “mainly responsible”. So put poverty reduction requires higher government spending and always hot and redistribution. “But we are long must fail, as long as the present federal governments or their predecessor government explain the increase of taxes and fees for Tabu,” Schneider said.